This post is about making a living as a web developer using Seaside.
I am an unemployed software developer in Calgary (1,000,000 people), Alberta, Canada. I have used Squeak for years but I have found no Smalltalk work in Calgary and in fact know of only one small company in Calgary that uses Smalltalk.
I know very little about Seaside. My impression is that websites developed using Seaside are somewhat slower than with other web development tools and that Seaside uses more memory (I assume on the server side) than other web development tools. Nevertheless there are web developers using Seaside successfully. Are these impressions correct?
What I am wondering is should I learn Seaside and then attempt to sell my web development services in Calgary? My impression is that: 1) No one in Calgary has ever heard of Seaside so selling my services would be difficult. 2) Since I should be able to develop web sites faster using Seaside I should be able to offer my services at a discount and hopefully be able to find business that way. But since no one but myself (at least locally) would be able to maintain the web sites, potential customers are going to be very shy. Are these impressions correct?
Lets assume I decide to become a web developer (something I know almost nothing about) using Seaside as my competitive edge. To my knowledge I would be the only Seaside web developer in Calgary.
1) How long (starting basically from scratch) is it going to take before I am competent; or at least competent enough to seek clients? Assume I am a competent Squeak developer.
2) Which version(s) of Smalltalk should I use? I know Squeak and have used Visualworks in the distant past.
3) How screwed will my clients be if my ticker stops unexpectedly. Can Seaside developers from outside Calgary pick up the slack for my hypothetical clients?
4) Is there any areas within the web development would that I should concentrate on or avoid?
5) Is there any additional software/hardware that I would need other than my home computer (running Ubuntu) and Squeak/Seaside? My resources for investments is very limited.
Are there other questions that I should have asked?
Starting a business is generally a tough deal so please don't butter me up with glowing reviews of Seaside.
Regards,
Ralph Boland
I strongly advice against it.
Even though Seaside did provide an advantage in the past. That was because of its main feature (continuations), which allows development of web application that use pure html. However AJAX and WebApps coded in Javascript triumph in almost all circumstances continuations. In this video, Avi Bryant, the original creator of Seaside explains: http://blip.tv/file/3039582
I suggest you learn Javascript and after that CoffeeScript. Take a look at Sproutcore.
On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 11:53 PM, Ralph Boland rpboland@gmail.com wrote:
This post is about making a living as a web developer using Seaside.
I am an unemployed software developer in Calgary (1,000,000 people), Alberta, Canada. I have used Squeak for years but I have found no Smalltalk work in Calgary and in fact know of only one small company in Calgary that uses Smalltalk.
I know very little about Seaside. My impression is that websites developed using Seaside are somewhat slower than with other web development tools and that Seaside uses more memory (I assume on the server side) than other web development tools. Nevertheless there are web developers using Seaside successfully. Are these impressions correct?
What I am wondering is should I learn Seaside and then attempt to sell my web development services in Calgary? My impression is that:
- No one in Calgary has ever heard of Seaside so selling my services
would be difficult. 2) Since I should be able to develop web sites faster using Seaside I should be able to offer my services at a discount and hopefully be able to find business that way. But since no one but myself (at least locally) would be able to maintain the web sites, potential customers are going to be very shy. Are these impressions correct?
Lets assume I decide to become a web developer (something I know almost nothing about) using Seaside as my competitive edge. To my knowledge I would be the only Seaside web developer in Calgary.
- How long (starting basically from scratch) is it going to take
before I am competent; or at least competent enough to seek clients? Assume I am a competent Squeak developer.
Which version(s) of Smalltalk should I use? I know Squeak and have used Visualworks in the distant past.
How screwed will my clients be if my ticker stops unexpectedly.
Can Seaside developers from outside Calgary pick up the slack for my hypothetical clients?
- Is there any areas within the web development would that I should
concentrate on or avoid?
- Is there any additional software/hardware that I would need other than
my home computer (running Ubuntu) and Squeak/Seaside? My resources for investments is very limited.
Are there other questions that I should have asked?
Starting a business is generally a tough deal so please don't butter me up with glowing reviews of Seaside.
Regards,
Ralph Boland _______________________________________________ seaside mailing list seaside@lists.squeakfoundation.org http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seaside
well... I certainly wasn't expecting that kind of answer in a seaside mailing list. While a reasonable amount of criticism is fine... It looks like your opinion is "Seaside is dead, let's close all development and mailing list and advice our -few- new possible community members to keep away from us".
I strongly disagree with you (and probably with Avi too, I really don't care). I still found a lot of advantage on using seaside for my applications. I still found a lot of power behind it. And I certainly still think the seaside model is the better web-development architecture I ever found. Of course, continuations are not so necessary today, but they are still a lot of advantage when you need it, and I still get a huge applause (not without envy) every time I show how it works to other non-seaside developers. Also... for javascript stuff, I think the javascript, prototype and jquery packages still needs work (and that's why I'm doing Reef), but the ajax/javascript potential in there is HUGE.
Why so? because seaside continuations is just one of the benefits seaside give us... there are others like componentization, reusability, and the "feeling" of you are programing a desktop application instead a web page.
Next versions of Seaside should enhance it's "web 2.0" capabilities, of course... but not just that. I think the real strength of seaside is to provide a better (and not matched) way to program well designed applications.
cheers, Esteban
El 08/04/2011, a las 7:54p.m., Richard Durr escribió:
I strongly advice against it.
Even though Seaside did provide an advantage in the past. That was because of its main feature (continuations), which allows development of web application that use pure html. However AJAX and WebApps coded in Javascript triumph in almost all circumstances continuations. In this video, Avi Bryant, the original creator of Seaside explains: http://blip.tv/file/3039582
I suggest you learn Javascript and after that CoffeeScript. Take a look at Sproutcore.
On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 11:53 PM, Ralph Boland rpboland@gmail.com wrote: This post is about making a living as a web developer using Seaside.
I am an unemployed software developer in Calgary (1,000,000 people), Alberta, Canada. I have used Squeak for years but I have found no Smalltalk work in Calgary and in fact know of only one small company in Calgary that uses Smalltalk.
I know very little about Seaside. My impression is that websites developed using Seaside are somewhat slower than with other web development tools and that Seaside uses more memory (I assume on the server side) than other web development tools. Nevertheless there are web developers using Seaside successfully. Are these impressions correct?
What I am wondering is should I learn Seaside and then attempt to sell my web development services in Calgary? My impression is that:
- No one in Calgary has ever heard of Seaside so selling my services
would be difficult. 2) Since I should be able to develop web sites faster using Seaside I should be able to offer my services at a discount and hopefully be able to find business that way. But since no one but myself (at least locally) would be able to maintain the web sites, potential customers are going to be very shy. Are these impressions correct?
Lets assume I decide to become a web developer (something I know almost nothing about) using Seaside as my competitive edge. To my knowledge I would be the only Seaside web developer in Calgary.
- How long (starting basically from scratch) is it going to take
before I am competent; or at least competent enough to seek clients? Assume I am a competent Squeak developer.
Which version(s) of Smalltalk should I use? I know Squeak and have used Visualworks in the distant past.
How screwed will my clients be if my ticker stops unexpectedly.
Can Seaside developers from outside Calgary pick up the slack for my hypothetical clients?
- Is there any areas within the web development would that I should
concentrate on or avoid?
- Is there any additional software/hardware that I would need other than my home computer (running Ubuntu) and Squeak/Seaside? My resources for investments is very limited.
Are there other questions that I should have asked?
Starting a business is generally a tough deal so please don't butter me up with glowing reviews of Seaside.
Regards,
Ralph Boland _______________________________________________ seaside mailing list seaside@lists.squeakfoundation.org http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seaside
seaside mailing list seaside@lists.squeakfoundation.org http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seaside
Continuations have always been a minor part of seaside for me.
For me, the power of seaside is in persisted objects on the server side that allow you to write a very minimal amount of code for querying and updating.
There is a great deal of value in learning seaside. Now, will that help you make money as an independent developer? I doubt it... but to say that the main feature of Seaside was continuations well... not for me. It isn't what drew me and it never will be.
I suggest you watch Avi's Smalltalk Solutions talk once it goes up online as he spends a decent amount of time talking about the strengths of Seaside as well.
On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 6:54 PM, Richard Durr richard.durr@googlemail.com wrote:
I strongly advice against it. Even though Seaside did provide an advantage in the past. That was because of its main feature (continuations), which allows development of web application that use pure html. However AJAX and WebApps coded in Javascript triumph in almost all circumstances continuations. In this video, Avi Bryant, the original creator of Seaside explains: http://blip.tv/file/3039582 I suggest you learn Javascript and after that CoffeeScript. Take a look at Sproutcore.
On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 11:53 PM, Ralph Boland rpboland@gmail.com wrote:
This post is about making a living as a web developer using Seaside.
I am an unemployed software developer in Calgary (1,000,000 people), Alberta, Canada. I have used Squeak for years but I have found no Smalltalk work in Calgary and in fact know of only one small company in Calgary that uses Smalltalk.
I know very little about Seaside. My impression is that websites developed using Seaside are somewhat slower than with other web development tools and that Seaside uses more memory (I assume on the server side) than other web development tools. Nevertheless there are web developers using Seaside successfully. Are these impressions correct?
What I am wondering is should I learn Seaside and then attempt to sell my web development services in Calgary? My impression is that:
- No one in Calgary has ever heard of Seaside so selling my services
would be difficult. 2) Since I should be able to develop web sites faster using Seaside I should be able to offer my services at a discount and hopefully be able to find business that way. But since no one but myself (at least locally) would be able to maintain the web sites, potential customers are going to be very shy. Are these impressions correct?
Lets assume I decide to become a web developer (something I know almost nothing about) using Seaside as my competitive edge. To my knowledge I would be the only Seaside web developer in Calgary.
- How long (starting basically from scratch) is it going to take
before I am competent; or at least competent enough to seek clients? Assume I am a competent Squeak developer.
- Which version(s) of Smalltalk should I use?
I know Squeak and have used Visualworks in the distant past.
- How screwed will my clients be if my ticker stops unexpectedly.
Can Seaside developers from outside Calgary pick up the slack for my hypothetical clients?
- Is there any areas within the web development would that I should
concentrate on or avoid?
- Is there any additional software/hardware that I would need other than
my home computer (running Ubuntu) and Squeak/Seaside? My resources for investments is very limited.
Are there other questions that I should have asked?
Starting a business is generally a tough deal so please don't butter me up with glowing reviews of Seaside.
Regards,
Ralph Boland _______________________________________________ seaside mailing list seaside@lists.squeakfoundation.org http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seaside
seaside mailing list seaside@lists.squeakfoundation.org http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seaside
AJAX + Javascript is not a superior alternative to continuations. In fact, you can use ajax and continuations and javascript together, and it's awesome. So that's bunk.
Pat
On Apr 8, 2011, at 3:54 PM, Richard Durr wrote:
I strongly advice against it.
Even though Seaside did provide an advantage in the past. That was because of its main feature (continuations), which allows development of web application that use pure html. However AJAX and WebApps coded in Javascript triumph in almost all circumstances continuations. In this video, Avi Bryant, the original creator of Seaside explains: http://blip.tv/file/3039582
I suggest you learn Javascript and after that CoffeeScript. Take a look at Sproutcore.
On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 11:53 PM, Ralph Boland rpboland@gmail.com wrote: This post is about making a living as a web developer using Seaside.
I am an unemployed software developer in Calgary (1,000,000 people), Alberta, Canada. I have used Squeak for years but I have found no Smalltalk work in Calgary and in fact know of only one small company in Calgary that uses Smalltalk.
I know very little about Seaside. My impression is that websites developed using Seaside are somewhat slower than with other web development tools and that Seaside uses more memory (I assume on the server side) than other web development tools. Nevertheless there are web developers using Seaside successfully. Are these impressions correct?
What I am wondering is should I learn Seaside and then attempt to sell my web development services in Calgary? My impression is that:
- No one in Calgary has ever heard of Seaside so selling my services
would be difficult. 2) Since I should be able to develop web sites faster using Seaside I should be able to offer my services at a discount and hopefully be able to find business that way. But since no one but myself (at least locally) would be able to maintain the web sites, potential customers are going to be very shy. Are these impressions correct?
Lets assume I decide to become a web developer (something I know almost nothing about) using Seaside as my competitive edge. To my knowledge I would be the only Seaside web developer in Calgary.
- How long (starting basically from scratch) is it going to take
before I am competent; or at least competent enough to seek clients? Assume I am a competent Squeak developer.
Which version(s) of Smalltalk should I use? I know Squeak and have used Visualworks in the distant past.
How screwed will my clients be if my ticker stops unexpectedly.
Can Seaside developers from outside Calgary pick up the slack for my hypothetical clients?
- Is there any areas within the web development would that I should
concentrate on or avoid?
- Is there any additional software/hardware that I would need other than my home computer (running Ubuntu) and Squeak/Seaside? My resources for investments is very limited.
Are there other questions that I should have asked?
Starting a business is generally a tough deal so please don't butter me up with glowing reviews of Seaside.
Regards,
Ralph Boland _______________________________________________ seaside mailing list seaside@lists.squeakfoundation.org http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seaside
seaside mailing list seaside@lists.squeakfoundation.org http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seaside
I know very little about Seaside. My impression is that websites developed using Seaside are somewhat slower than with other web development tools and that Seaside uses more memory (I assume on the server side) than other web development tools. Nevertheless there are web developers using Seaside successfully. Are these impressions correct?
That is too broad of a question. It really depends on what 'other tools' you are comparing it to.
What I am wondering is should I learn Seaside and then attempt to sell my web development services in Calgary? My impression is that:
- No one in Calgary has ever heard of Seaside so selling my services
would be difficult.
If they care about what it is built in. That is certainly true.
- Since I should be able to develop web sites faster using Seaside I
should be able to offer my services at a discount and hopefully be able to find business that way. But since no one but myself (at least locally) would be able to maintain the web sites, potential customers are going to be very shy. Are these impressions correct?
Again, if they care about what it is built in yes. As to faster... I have to say, I have used a ton of web frameworks and nothing has come close to Seaside in terms of speed to develop but that is more about the Smalltalk environment than anything that was Seaside specific. That said, there are aspects of seaside that make certain types of applications that would normally be really hard very trivial.
Lets assume I decide to become a web developer (something I know almost nothing about) using Seaside as my competitive edge. To my knowledge I would be the only Seaside web developer in Calgary.
- How long (starting basically from scratch) is it going to take
before I am competent; or at least competent enough to seek clients? Assume I am a competent Squeak developer.
you know nothing about web development? i think that is going to be what trips you up. not any seaside specific part.
you will need to know html, css, javascript etc.
that is going to take time.
you can get up to speed doing crap html,css and js very quickly. but becoming competent will take you a while.
- Which version(s) of Smalltalk should I use?
I know Squeak and have used Visualworks in the distant past.
that depends on your application requirements.
glass, pharo and vw's web velocity would meet different needs you might have.
- How screwed will my clients be if my ticker stops unexpectedly.
Can Seaside developers from outside Calgary pick up the slack for my hypothetical clients?
Probably really screwed because they wouldnt know where to find a seaside developer. However, if you tell them how and explain why they are getting X application cheaper or for the same amount of money, in the same amount of time, with more features, you have a possible selling point.
Finding someone to do Seaside dev for money isnt hard if you know where to find them AND they are probably going to be a competent programmer.
- Is there any areas within the web development would that I should
concentrate on or avoid?
Concentrate on applications that involve lots of state. It is where seaside really excels.
- Is there any additional software/hardware that I would need other than my
home computer (running Ubuntu) and Squeak/Seaside? My resources for investments is very limited.
I would advise starting with Pharo not Squeak when playing around. If you are doing lots of relational db stuff... look into web velocity. My personal favorite environment by far is Gemstone's GLASS which basically takes the 'pharo' persistent to image method and makes it scale.
=S=
You can develop complex applications much more rapidly in Seaside than in most other frameworks. Prototyping and iterating are very straightforward, and there's a good choice of relational or object databases to work with.
GLASS is an 'enterprise' framework, with a corresponding level of support, so this is one reassurance you would be able to provide to corporate customers.
In addition, as Sean already mentions, Smalltalk developers are not common, but their quality certainly makes up for it. If someone had to pick up after you, a Smalltalk code base is quicker to come to grips with than, say, something made in Java... ;-)
Amir
Hi Roland,
I guess, just like with all web soultions, starting a business with a web application is a very very big task. Especially in your case, when you are saying that you are not really experienced with that kind of technology.
But there are in deed pros and cons in Seaside which might help you to start quickly or, on the other hand to drive you crazy.
First some cons: Seaside is lacking Smalltalk Developer Support. The Seaside framework expects a lot of knowledge in HTML, CSS and Javascript. The Seaside core development team focuses very much in supporting different kinds of web web technologies in Seaside. But... there are no approaches to set a layer on top of seaside that might help pure Smalltalkers to start with Seaside web develpment.... at least no Seaside core team members. There are some additional projects coming up with very interesting Seaside addons but it will still take some time until "everybody" will be able to implement full Seaside Smalltalk web applications.
Seaside is evolving. From a business perspective view you will have to think over a lot of your decisions you've made a few month ago from time to time. First Consinuations are everything you need,... then you don't necesarily need them,... Prototype/Scriptacoulus -> jQuery,... Squeak -> Pharo, ... Seacharts -> jQueryWidgetBox,....
There's no real standard component library you can use just to proof some of your concepts.
...
Second the pros: Seaside fullfills/offers a lot of things you might be faced with problems in other web frameworks. Security, Deployment, Code Repository, mature IDE,...
Seaside is a very productive environment once you have taken the first hurdle (base component library, base css layouts, base "templates").
Seaside/Smalltalk offers binding to many many other technologies and makes it very easy to follow you costumers demands and infrastructure changes.
The learning curve in Seaside/Smalltalk is very steep. Smalltalk = prose. Certain base knowledge of web developement is already covered by Seaside. You will quite early get proper results.
What I would do in your case. Most startUps I know used Gemstone/Seaside to start their business. Here you get a least rid of a lot of time that other web developersspend with thier persistency frameworks and DB bindings. I know some guys who successfully started business with seaside.
And keep one thing in mind! The average customer doesn't really care what kind of technology you use,... he's interested in the results. That's different with those really large firms that rely on expensive hardware,... but even there are exceptions.
Here's a question for you: "Why not Smalltalk?"
Good luck! Sebastian
Am 08.04.2011 23:53, schrieb Ralph Boland:
This post is about making a living as a web developer using Seaside.
I am an unemployed software developer in Calgary (1,000,000 people), Alberta, Canada. I have used Squeak for years but I have found no Smalltalk work in Calgary and in fact know of only one small company in Calgary that uses Smalltalk.
I know very little about Seaside. My impression is that websites developed using Seaside are somewhat slower than with other web development tools and that Seaside uses more memory (I assume on the server side) than other web development tools. Nevertheless there are web developers using Seaside successfully. Are these impressions correct?
What I am wondering is should I learn Seaside and then attempt to sell my web development services in Calgary? My impression is that:
- No one in Calgary has ever heard of Seaside so selling my services
would be difficult. 2) Since I should be able to develop web sites faster using Seaside I should be able to offer my services at a discount and hopefully be able to find business that way. But since no one but myself (at least locally) would be able to maintain the web sites, potential customers are going to be very shy. Are these impressions correct?
Lets assume I decide to become a web developer (something I know almost nothing about) using Seaside as my competitive edge. To my knowledge I would be the only Seaside web developer in Calgary.
- How long (starting basically from scratch) is it going to take
before I am competent; or at least competent enough to seek clients? Assume I am a competent Squeak developer.
Which version(s) of Smalltalk should I use? I know Squeak and have used Visualworks in the distant past.
How screwed will my clients be if my ticker stops unexpectedly.
Can Seaside developers from outside Calgary pick up the slack for my hypothetical clients?
- Is there any areas within the web development would that I should
concentrate on or avoid?
- Is there any additional software/hardware that I would need other than my home computer (running Ubuntu) and Squeak/Seaside? My resources for investments is very limited.
Are there other questions that I should have asked?
Starting a business is generally a tough deal so please don't butter me up with glowing reviews of Seaside.
Regards,
Ralph Boland _______________________________________________ seaside mailing list seaside@lists.squeakfoundation.org http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seaside
On 09 Apr 2011, at 02:37, Sebastian Heidbrink wrote:
The Seaside framework expects a lot of knowledge in HTML, CSS and Javascript.
I'm sorry, but building web applications with *any* web development technology/framework/ will require you to know html, css and javascript.
Seaside does a very good job at integrating those in the Smalltalk code, btw. But, of course, you are right that there is always plenty of room for improvement and there are areas where it needs to catch up too (but which framework is complete?).
Johan
On Sat, Apr 9, 2011 at 9:37 AM, Johan Brichau johan@inceptive.be wrote:
On 09 Apr 2011, at 02:37, Sebastian Heidbrink wrote:
The Seaside framework expects a lot of knowledge in HTML, CSS and
Javascript.
I'm sorry, but building web applications with *any* web development technology/framework/ will require you to know html, css and javascript.
+ 10
Laurent
Seaside does a very good job at integrating those in the Smalltalk code, btw. But, of course, you are right that there is always plenty of room for improvement and there are areas where it needs to catch up too (but which framework is complete?).
Johan_______________________________________________ seaside mailing list seaside@lists.squeakfoundation.org http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seaside
Hey,
entering another company (with development temas) with Seaside-only knowledge gives you no win - other than personal confidence, that you have investigated other technologies. They will expect, that you know THEIR technology and not the other way around.
Entering as external solution provider into a company is a different thing. Actually technology should not be any topic there in tose project discussions (but perhaps you have to use/interact with other technology) and you are free to use Seaside. But you are - in most of the cases - not selling Seaside. You must sell solutions.
Even though you may hope, that you will be cheaper than others - I would not be so sure about it. We have seen customers here in Germany, who would like to have a german company - but prices should be on a level on eastern European countries. More or less impossible to do. And all those companies out there using php or other stuff - THEY can use thousands of already available libraries, for all of the most common tasks.
Therefore if you are facing projects with common tasks - how will you beat those php programmers ???? If you are in projects with not-so-common needs, you get more chances to have good prices.
And - as Sebastian answered - Seaside is a small component of WWW development. You MUST know Javascript, you MUST know CSS - especially superb knowledge of CSS may put your technical solution into an nice-looking solution.
Then also consider environment technolgies like Apache to support your solution
Marten
Am 08.04.2011 23:53, schrieb Ralph Boland:
This post is about making a living as a web developer using Seaside.
I am an unemployed software developer in Calgary (1,000,000 people), Alberta, Canada. I have used Squeak for years but I have found no Smalltalk work in Calgary and in fact know of only one small company in Calgary that uses Smalltalk.
I know very little about Seaside. My impression is that websites developed using Seaside are somewhat slower than with other web development tools and that Seaside uses more memory (I assume on the server side) than other web development tools. Nevertheless there are web developers using Seaside successfully. Are these impressions correct?
Lets assume I decide to become a web developer (something I know almost nothing about) using Seaside as my competitive edge. To my knowledge I would be the only Seaside web developer in Calgary.
- How long (starting basically from scratch) is it going to take
before I am competent; or at least competent enough to seek clients? Assume I am a competent Squeak developer.
Which version(s) of Smalltalk should I use? I know Squeak and have used Visualworks in the distant past.
How screwed will my clients be if my ticker stops unexpectedly.
Can Seaside developers from outside Calgary pick up the slack for my hypothetical clients?
- Is there any areas within the web development would that I should
concentrate on or avoid?
- Is there any additional software/hardware that I would need other than my home computer (running Ubuntu) and Squeak/Seaside? My resources for investments is very limited.
Are there other questions that I should have asked?
Starting a business is generally a tough deal so please don't butter me up with glowing reviews of Seaside.
Regards,
Ralph Boland _______________________________________________ seaside mailing list seaside@lists.squeakfoundation.org http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seaside
On 08 Apr 2011, at 23:53, Ralph Boland wrote:
Starting a business is generally a tough deal so please don't butter me up with glowing reviews of Seaside.
Well, to make a long story short, we did exactly that 2 years ago: www.inceptive.be Our two core projects are built using Seaside. One of them is already public: www.yesplan.be. The second one is going public by summer.
In one project, we got started explicitly because we were offering a Seaside-based solution. The customer had very bad experiences with traditional software development houses and was explicitly looking for an agile team using a dynamic language to do the job. So, it's fair to say that this was a unique opportunity. However, Seaside and Smalltalk did deliver! In only a single man-year of working hours (not counting the designer), we had produced a working application that other "established" development houses had failed to deliver. Whenever we show the functionality of the application to partnering software producers, they are amazed by the productivity we had gotten. Ah... and it should mention that one person in our team of three had never done any Seaside....
But, in our second Seaside project, the customers don't care at all what technology is used. They want a good product! And, in my opinion, that is true for many other potential projects we have down the pipeline. For us, Seaside and Smalltalk are powerful tools we can use to leverage a better price and better product in comparison to competitors. In the end, that is what customers want.
In other projects, we are exposed to .net, ios, objective-c, etc... and I generally miss a lot of the power and simplicity of Smalltalk. There is a lot of power in Smalltalk and the Smalltalk community when you look at Gemstone, Seaside, Pharo, Squeak, Visualworks, Cog, etc... !
There are (of course) occasions when I curse on Smalltalk in general: the lack of (or difficult) interoperability with non-Smalltalk based libraries and the relative small size of Smalltalk libraries is often the biggest hurdle. For every project we intend to do in Smalltalk, we have to carefully analyze the requirements and see if we can meet all of them in the Smalltalk environment. MS-Office interoperability, for example, is a nightmare.
Bottomline: Seaside and Smalltalk are currently our core technologies but not our *only* technologies. You cannot start a business on a single technology and doing business is more than technology.... there are many factors playing a role.
Cheers Johan
On 09 Apr 2011, at 09:35, Johan Brichau wrote:
Well, to make a long story short, we did exactly that 2 years ago: www.inceptive.be Our two core projects are built using Seaside. One of them is already public: www.yesplan.be. The second one is going public by summer.
In one project, we got started explicitly because we were offering a Seaside-based solution. The customer had very bad experiences with traditional software development houses and was explicitly looking for an agile team using a dynamic language to do the job. So, it's fair to say that this was a unique opportunity. However, Seaside and Smalltalk did deliver! In only a single man-year of working hours (not counting the designer), we had produced a working application that other "established" development houses had failed to deliver. Whenever we show the functionality of the application to partnering software producers, they are amazed by the productivity we had gotten. Ah... and it should mention that one person in our team of three had never done any Seaside....
But, in our second Seaside project, the customers don't care at all what technology is used. They want a good product! And, in my opinion, that is true for many other potential projects we have down the pipeline. For us, Seaside and Smalltalk are powerful tools we can use to leverage a better price and better product in comparison to competitors. In the end, that is what customers want.
In other projects, we are exposed to .net, ios, objective-c, etc... and I generally miss a lot of the power and simplicity of Smalltalk. There is a lot of power in Smalltalk and the Smalltalk community when you look at Gemstone, Seaside, Pharo, Squeak, Visualworks, Cog, etc... !
There are (of course) occasions when I curse on Smalltalk in general: the lack of (or difficult) interoperability with non-Smalltalk based libraries and the relative small size of Smalltalk libraries is often the biggest hurdle. For every project we intend to do in Smalltalk, we have to carefully analyze the requirements and see if we can meet all of them in the Smalltalk environment. MS-Office interoperability, for example, is a nightmare.
Bottomline: Seaside and Smalltalk are currently our core technologies but not our *only* technologies. You cannot start a business on a single technology and doing business is more than technology.... there are many factors playing a role.
Yesplan seems very impressive, Johan, this is really looking more and more like a super Success Story. I absolutely agree with your points/analysis: technology does matter, as does the team, but a great product/solution is the final delivery. Thanks for sharing all this!
Sven
On 09 Apr 2011, at 10:25, Sven Van Caekenberghe wrote:
Thanks for sharing all this!
Sven,
From what I have seen, you guys at beta9 are doing great with Smalltalk as well. Relative to the size of the country and the size of the Smalltalk community in the world, there is a lot of Smalltalk being done in Belgium.
Looking forward to seeing you at the Pharo sprint in Brussels!
Johan
2011/4/8 Ralph Boland rpboland@gmail.com:
This post is about making a living as a web developer using Seaside.
I am an unemployed software developer in Calgary (1,000,000 people), Alberta, Canada. I have used Squeak for years but I have found no Smalltalk work in Calgary and in fact know of only one small company in Calgary that uses Smalltalk.
I know very little about Seaside. My impression is that websites developed using Seaside are somewhat slower than with other web development tools and that Seaside uses more memory (I assume on the server side) than other web development tools. Nevertheless there are web developers using Seaside successfully. Are these impressions correct?
What I am wondering is should I learn Seaside and then attempt to sell my web development services in Calgary? My impression is that:
- No one in Calgary has ever heard of Seaside so selling my services
would be difficult. 2) Since I should be able to develop web sites faster using Seaside I should be able to offer my services at a discount and hopefully be able to find business that way. But since no one but myself (at least locally) would be able to maintain the web sites, potential customers are going to be very shy. Are these impressions correct?
Lets assume I decide to become a web developer (something I know almost nothing about) using Seaside as my competitive edge. To my knowledge I would be the only Seaside web developer in Calgary.
- How long (starting basically from scratch) is it going to take
before I am competent; or at least competent enough to seek clients? Assume I am a competent Squeak developer.
- Which version(s) of Smalltalk should I use?
I know Squeak and have used Visualworks in the distant past.
- How screwed will my clients be if my ticker stops unexpectedly.
Can Seaside developers from outside Calgary pick up the slack for my hypothetical clients?
- Is there any areas within the web development would that I should
concentrate on or avoid?
- Is there any additional software/hardware that I would need other than my
home computer (running Ubuntu) and Squeak/Seaside? My resources for investments is very limited.
Are there other questions that I should have asked?
Starting a business is generally a tough deal so please don't butter me up with glowing reviews of Seaside.
If you know almost nothing about web development and don't know Seaside as well I'd advise against it. First you'll have to learn HTML, CSS, JavaScript. Then you'll have to learn how to operate a web application and a database.
My advice would be to look for an other job and get comfortable with Seaside by dabbling with it in your free time.
Cheers Philippe
Hi Ralph,
there is little to add for me. The ones that wrote before me did a pretty decent job. I just want to add one dimension on decision making. You can read between the lines in most of the responses written so far. There is some distinction in what you call "web development". Nowadays I separate web development in "web presentation" and "web application". The difference I like to make is where the focus in development lies.
A solution for a "web presentation" site focusses mainly on the design. Here you will have a designer that designs "pages" in photoshop. A common way is to create templates that bring the photoshop design to the web. You concentrate on pages and usually you need a lot of markup in order to come close to the photoshop design. Seaside does not fit perfectly into this scenario. But I would assume that a lot of your customers just want a "web presentation".
A "web application" focusses more on the flow of actions between the pages. Thus the individual components a page is made of become more important. This is the area where seaside excels. You can realize rather complex application easily. On the other hand it complicates the handling of CSS. In a template scenario web designers often use things like absolute positioning and such to make the web page look closer to the photoshop design. In a component based scenario CSS should work more independent of the surrounding markup. I think this way will become more popular but a lot of web designers have problems in getting it right.
So to me the decision is where you are aiming at. If you don't have that much customers and therefor cannot chose which one you take it seems possible there will be a lot of customers of the "presentation" type. Taking seaside for this kind of development could cause you more pain than it gives you benefit. If you like to have customers from the "application" type than seaside can be a lot of fun. The decision to aim in that direction is indeed feasible. There are not that many web developing companies that are capable of doing complex web apps. And in my opinion this will grow. I don't know what avi said and why javascript lowers the need for seaside. But in my opinion you can focus on the server in a relaxed fashion as long as the majority of browsers support ECMAScript-262 and not ECMAScript 5. One reason for this is that javascript does not have any security model and HTML has only cross domain security. So at the minimum you realize security issues over the server, etc.
hope that helps,
Norbert
Am 08.04.2011 um 23:53 schrieb Ralph Boland:
This post is about making a living as a web developer using Seaside.
I am an unemployed software developer in Calgary (1,000,000 people), Alberta, Canada. I have used Squeak for years but I have found no Smalltalk work in Calgary and in fact know of only one small company in Calgary that uses Smalltalk.
I know very little about Seaside. My impression is that websites developed using Seaside are somewhat slower than with other web development tools and that Seaside uses more memory (I assume on the server side) than other web development tools. Nevertheless there are web developers using Seaside successfully. Are these impressions correct?
What I am wondering is should I learn Seaside and then attempt to sell my web development services in Calgary? My impression is that:
- No one in Calgary has ever heard of Seaside so selling my services
would be difficult. 2) Since I should be able to develop web sites faster using Seaside I should be able to offer my services at a discount and hopefully be able to find business that way. But since no one but myself (at least locally) would be able to maintain the web sites, potential customers are going to be very shy. Are these impressions correct?
Lets assume I decide to become a web developer (something I know almost nothing about) using Seaside as my competitive edge. To my knowledge I would be the only Seaside web developer in Calgary.
- How long (starting basically from scratch) is it going to take
before I am competent; or at least competent enough to seek clients? Assume I am a competent Squeak developer.
Which version(s) of Smalltalk should I use? I know Squeak and have used Visualworks in the distant past.
How screwed will my clients be if my ticker stops unexpectedly.
Can Seaside developers from outside Calgary pick up the slack for my hypothetical clients?
- Is there any areas within the web development would that I should
concentrate on or avoid?
- Is there any additional software/hardware that I would need other than my home computer (running Ubuntu) and Squeak/Seaside? My resources for investments is very limited.
Are there other questions that I should have asked?
Starting a business is generally a tough deal so please don't butter me up with glowing reviews of Seaside.
Regards,
Ralph Boland _______________________________________________ seaside mailing list seaside@lists.squeakfoundation.org http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seaside
plication". The difference I like to make is where the focus in development lies.
A solution for a "web presentation" site focusses mainly on the design. Here you will have a designer that designs "pages" in photoshop. A common way is to create templates that bring the photoshop design to the web. You concentrate on pages and usually you need a lot of markup in order to come close to the photoshop design. Seaside does not fit perfectly into this scenario. But I would assume that a lot of your customers just want a "web presentation".
Off topic here... but this method of doing presentational development using photoshop has always struck me as the equivalent of using uml to design you entire application ahead of time w/o any consideration of the language platform etc.
I started using Seaside (Pharo Smalltalk) a couple years ago now with very little programming background. It was rather confusing at first since there's a lot going on in the images, but in the end, everything Pharo does is brilliant... makes for a far better programming environment and as stated in earlier posts, debugging, code reusability, etc. My advice would be open up a Seaside one-click image and book.seaside.st and try a couple things out. Seaside is supposed to be suited for quick prototyping development, so why not give it a shot? There's a ton of knowledge in all the people on this list, and everyone is happy to help others out. I know I asked a lot of really basic questions at the beginning, and they got me going (thanks guys!). Just my one or two cents... RS
Date: Sat, 9 Apr 2011 09:02:09 -0400 Subject: Re: [Seaside] Should I become a Seasider? From: sean@monkeysnatchbanana.com To: seaside@lists.squeakfoundation.org
plication". The difference I like to make is where the focus in development lies.
A solution for a "web presentation" site focusses mainly on the design. Here you will have a designer that designs "pages" in photoshop. A common way is to create templates that bring the photoshop design to the web. You concentrate on pages and usually you need a lot of markup in order to come close to the photoshop design. Seaside does not fit perfectly into this scenario. But I would assume that a lot of your customers just want a "web presentation".
Off topic here... but this method of doing presentational development using photoshop has always struck me as the equivalent of using uml to design you entire application ahead of time w/o any consideration of the language platform etc. _______________________________________________ seaside mailing list seaside@lists.squeakfoundation.org http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seaside
Am 09.04.2011 um 15:02 schrieb Sean Allen:
plication". The difference I like to make is where the focus in development lies.
A solution for a "web presentation" site focusses mainly on the design. Here you will have a designer that designs "pages" in photoshop. A common way is to create templates that bring the photoshop design to the web. You concentrate on pages and usually you need a lot of markup in order to come close to the photoshop design. Seaside does not fit perfectly into this scenario. But I would assume that a lot of your customers just want a "web presentation".
Off topic here... but this method of doing presentational development using photoshop has always struck me as the equivalent of using uml to design you entire application ahead of time w/o any consideration of the language platform etc.
It works quite well if you have a couple of pages that have just links between them and not that much dynamism. It just does not work well if you cross the border towards applications. In this area designers are exactly like programmers. Programmers want to program and designers want to design. Both leads to heavy change rates.
Norbert
On Sat, Apr 9, 2011 at 11:14 AM, Norbert Hartl norbert@hartl.name wrote:
Am 09.04.2011 um 15:02 schrieb Sean Allen:
plication". The difference I like to make is where the focus in development lies.
A solution for a "web presentation" site focusses mainly on the design. Here you will have a designer that designs "pages" in photoshop. A common way is to create templates that bring the photoshop design to the web. You concentrate on pages and usually you need a lot of markup in order to come close to the photoshop design. Seaside does not fit perfectly into this scenario. But I would assume that a lot of your customers just want a "web presentation".
Off topic here... but this method of doing presentational development using photoshop has always struck me as the equivalent of using uml to design you entire application ahead of time w/o any consideration of the language platform etc.
It works quite well if you have a couple of pages that have just links between them and not that much dynamism. It just does not work well if you cross the border towards applications. In this area designers are exactly like programmers. Programmers want to program and designers want to design. Both leads to heavy change rates.
I've found it leads to designs that are great for print and usually sucks for the web especially as a photoshop file is not going to represent the possibilities of different browsers and can't do any dynamic elements of the page at all.
On Apr 9, 2011, at 11:07 AM, Sean Allen wrote:
On Sat, Apr 9, 2011 at 11:14 AM, Norbert Hartl norbert@hartl.name wrote:
Am 09.04.2011 um 15:02 schrieb Sean Allen:
plication". The difference I like to make is where the focus in development lies.
A solution for a "web presentation" site focusses mainly on the design. Here you will have a designer that designs "pages" in photoshop. A common way is to create templates that bring the photoshop design to the web. You concentrate on pages and usually you need a lot of markup in order to come close to the photoshop design. Seaside does not fit perfectly into this scenario. But I would assume that a lot of your customers just want a "web presentation".
Off topic here... but this method of doing presentational development using photoshop has always struck me as the equivalent of using uml to design you entire application ahead of time w/o any consideration of the language platform etc.
It works quite well if you have a couple of pages that have just links between them and not that much dynamism. It just does not work well if you cross the border towards applications. In this area designers are exactly like programmers. Programmers want to program and designers want to design. Both leads to heavy change rates.
I've found it leads to designs that are great for print and usually sucks for the web especially as a photoshop file is not going to represent the possibilities of different browsers and can't do any dynamic elements of the page at all.
I have noticed similar things. People with many years of design experience or who went to school for design ages ago and didn't stay up-to-date are particularly bad. Interaction design is very important and not taught everywhere or as part of every school's design program. But hopefully that's changing. It would be hard to get a job doing nothing but print design today, I think.
— Daniel Lyons
Hi again,
There are just a few thoughts I'd like to add.
First, I already mentioned this between the lines, and others, too.
One big selling point on Smalltalk and Seaside is one advantage merely no other environment has. Your business logic, the only layer that brings you money, can easily be transferd to any kind of it infrastracture and software architecture. Once you have it, you can make, web applications, web services, fatclients, smart clients, desktop applications, application servers,... providing access to it. You just add a different access layer and your done. Same with the data acccess layer.
Has anyone ever written a desktop application in php?
If I where you, I would start my business with a proper idea based on a desktop application. When you think this might be insteresting for a potential costumer you can then ask him, if he's interested in your business logic, how he might prefer to access it.
I did all different kinds of software within Smalltalk and those guys who wrote, that Seaside is too much overhead for a pure beginner for implementing a sole presenting web site are absolutly right.
Not the guy who implements an application gains money,... it's the guy using it. You can just raise you profit, be beeing a real specialist, or a seldom guy, or by providing a business logic that nobody else might be able to offer.
Finding other Seasiders or Smalltalkers is really no big deal. It's indeed just an argument to lower your price.
Maybe you shouldn't even care about HTMl, CSS and Javascript. Once you have a business logic and a costumer,... you should be able to pay a specialist for the rest needed.
"But I still whish there were more base components for Seaside. Things like different kinds of forms and lightboxes..." (Orderform, Contactform, Filterform, Loginform.... )
I implemented in all major laanguages,... php, c/c++, C#, JAVA,... and Smalltalk. There's absolutly no doubt about it. Smalltalk is way more productive than all the others.
So setting up a business and doing prototyping,... Smalltalk would be my first choice. If you costumers, might not want smalltalk but might pay good,... you can still migrate your payed business logic,.... and earn much more money by beeing inproductive ;-)
Sebastian
Am 09.04.2011 02:09, schrieb Norbert Hartl:
Hi Ralph,
there is little to add for me. The ones that wrote before me did a pretty decent job. I just want to add one dimension on decision making. You can read between the lines in most of the responses written so far. There is some distinction in what you call "web development". Nowadays I separate web development in "web presentation" and "web application". The difference I like to make is where the focus in development lies.
A solution for a "web presentation" site focusses mainly on the design. Here you will have a designer that designs "pages" in photoshop. A common way is to create templates that bring the photoshop design to the web. You concentrate on pages and usually you need a lot of markup in order to come close to the photoshop design. Seaside does not fit perfectly into this scenario. But I would assume that a lot of your customers just want a "web presentation".
A "web application" focusses more on the flow of actions between the pages. Thus the individual components a page is made of become more important. This is the area where seaside excels. You can realize rather complex application easily. On the other hand it complicates the handling of CSS. In a template scenario web designers often use things like absolute positioning and such to make the web page look closer to the photoshop design. In a component based scenario CSS should work more independent of the surrounding markup. I think this way will become more popular but a lot of web designers have problems in getting it right.
So to me the decision is where you are aiming at. If you don't have that much customers and therefor cannot chose which one you take it seems possible there will be a lot of customers of the "presentation" type. Taking seaside for this kind of development could cause you more pain than it gives you benefit. If you like to have customers from the "application" type than seaside can be a lot of fun. The decision to aim in that direction is indeed feasible. There are not that many web developing companies that are capable of doing complex web apps. And in my opinion this will grow. I don't know what avi said and why javascript lowers the need for seaside. But in my opinion you can focus on the server in a relaxed fashion as long as the majority of browsers support ECMAScript-262 and not ECMAScript 5. One reason for this is that javascript does not have any security model and HTML has only cross domain security. So at the minimum you realize security issues over the server, etc.
hope that helps,
Norbert
Am 08.04.2011 um 23:53 schrieb Ralph Boland:
This post is about making a living as a web developer using Seaside.
I am an unemployed software developer in Calgary (1,000,000 people), Alberta, Canada. I have used Squeak for years but I have found no Smalltalk work in Calgary and in fact know of only one small company in Calgary that uses Smalltalk.
I know very little about Seaside. My impression is that websites developed using Seaside are somewhat slower than with other web development tools and that Seaside uses more memory (I assume on the server side) than other web development tools. Nevertheless there are web developers using Seaside successfully. Are these impressions correct?
What I am wondering is should I learn Seaside and then attempt to sell my web development services in Calgary? My impression is that:
- No one in Calgary has ever heard of Seaside so selling my services
would be difficult. 2) Since I should be able to develop web sites faster using Seaside I should be able to offer my services at a discount and hopefully be able to find business that way. But since no one but myself (at least locally) would be able to maintain the web sites, potential customers are going to be very shy. Are these impressions correct?
Lets assume I decide to become a web developer (something I know almost nothing about) using Seaside as my competitive edge. To my knowledge I would be the only Seaside web developer in Calgary.
- How long (starting basically from scratch) is it going to take
before I am competent; or at least competent enough to seek clients? Assume I am a competent Squeak developer.
Which version(s) of Smalltalk should I use? I know Squeak and have used Visualworks in the distant past.
How screwed will my clients be if my ticker stops unexpectedly.
Can Seaside developers from outside Calgary pick up the slack for my hypothetical clients?
- Is there any areas within the web development would that I should
concentrate on or avoid?
- Is there any additional software/hardware that I would need other than my home computer (running Ubuntu) and Squeak/Seaside? My resources for investments is very limited.
Are there other questions that I should have asked?
Starting a business is generally a tough deal so please don't butter me up with glowing reviews of Seaside.
Regards,
Ralph Boland _______________________________________________ seaside mailing list seaside@lists.squeakfoundation.org http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seaside
seaside mailing list seaside@lists.squeakfoundation.org http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seaside
Ralph,
There's little for me to add either, except for my personal experience launching a failed business in 2007. Two friends of mine and I set out to change the world, we just weren't sure how or why. :) I did the back end stuff: system administration, database design, and most of the programming. One of my friends did marketing and design, the other did more programming and video. One year later, we abandoned one of my friends, the next year I left voluntarily because I was tired of being broke all the time. I hope you'll let me share some of my "wisdom" with you.
If you just want to get employed quickly, you should learn Java. That's what I did, and now I have a job I dislike, but at least I'm caught up on the rent. We both know that learning a language is not a huge deal yet for some idiotic reason programmers are hired based on language knowledge. Playing this game is not terribly difficult. If you're not a web developer now and you get a job doing it with Java, you'll probably be regarded by other web developers as a "real programmer" higher on the ladder. So that's nice.
If you really do want to launch a business, it's going to suck. Be prepared to be broke for a lot longer. My business failed after two years; I think we were in the black for two months during that whole time. I have another friend whose web dev business languished for three or four years, but he stuck it out and makes a tidy living at it now. It's a personality thing, I think, more than anything.
My clients didn't really care what was going on in the back end. It's not totally true; they expected to hear about our Microsoft servers and got suspicious when we didn't have them. But when they defected to the competition, it wasn't because Microsoft was in the back end; it wasn't. It was because the interface was nicer. Every client we got was because our app or our site or something in our portfolio was prettier than the other ones that client looked at. If the client is giving you trouble about you being irreplaceable or your technology being obscure, they're probably just trying to get a discount. Otherwise they just need to be emotionally placated. If you quit or die, they're going to have to get someone else no matter what you're using. Do they want to go through a hundred Java developers to find the 1% that can do anything? I'd much rather build my stuff on an obscure but open platform where I can be almost certain that any programmer I hire is activated, excited about the project, and probably willing to work for less money. People who get into Smalltalk do it out of love. People who get into Java do it for the money. It's counter-intuitive, but being obscure makes hiring easier and better.
I know very little about Seaside. My impression is that websites developed using Seaside are somewhat slower than with other web development tools and that Seaside uses more memory (I assume on the server side) than other web development tools. Nevertheless there are web developers using Seaside successfully. Are these impressions correct?
You know, it's true to a degree, but it's not all that important. The clients believe they're going to be the next Facebook, but they really aren't. Not even close. We had one almost-client that was building an auction site for heavy equipment. It never occurred to them that people were already buying and selling heavy equipment on eBay. They really felt like their system needed to be "web scale," but the truth is that there aren't going to be a million registrations on a site for buying and selling heavy equipment, let alone millions of requests per day or hour.
Seaside is slower than PHP. However, developing and debugging is faster, and the code is more reusable. Seaside is slower than PHP, but it's not slower than Drupal, Joomla or Magento. Seaside could certainly run laps around JSF, which is what we use at work. But my job is a perfect example of a place Seaside should be used: it's a small team of programmers (3) supporting a small group of users (<1000 world-wide). ICEfaces is at best 1/10th the speed of Seaside for this scenario, but it's irrelevant; my real problem is that JSF wastes vast quantities of developer time and makes easy things hard. Speed is relative, and not necessarily relevant.
What I am wondering is should I learn Seaside and then attempt to sell my web development services in Calgary? My impression is that:
- No one in Calgary has ever heard of Seaside so selling my services
would be difficult.
Your premise is right, but I'm not sure your conclusion is. Most of your clients are going to have trouble with the distinction between an IP address and an email address. They don't expect to understand these things. They just need to know why they should choose you over your competition. I think you're focusing on the negative aspect here. You need to sell them on the positives rather than placate them on the negatives. Your competition is going to be using PHP. You don't need to convince them that Seaside is right or PHP is wrong, you need to convince them that you're right for tangible reasons—tangible *to them*, the non-technical business people who make these decisions.
- Since I should be able to develop web sites faster using Seaside I
should be able to offer my services at a discount and hopefully be able to find business that way. But since no one but myself (at least locally) would be able to maintain the web sites, potential customers are going to be very shy. Are these impressions correct?
I didn't have much luck being the low price leader. You're not competing with other web dev shops for the bottom end, you're competing with high schoolers, hobbyists and "my friend's nephew who's real good with computers." You can't win against them on price, because they don't know what their services are worth, they are eager to please and will work ridiculous hours and not ask hard questions and so forth.
If you're competing on price, you are by definition competing as a commodity. I wouldn't go down this road (again), but if you do, you will have to consider your own replaceability fairly high on the list of your customer's priorities. I find this both difficult and depressing.
Lets assume I decide to become a web developer (something I know almost nothing about) using Seaside as my competitive edge. To my knowledge I would be the only Seaside web developer in Calgary.
- How long (starting basically from scratch) is it going to take
before I am competent; or at least competent enough to seek clients? Assume I am a competent Squeak developer.
In the two months I've been dabbling, I already feel competent enough to build the kinds of things I build for friends and as hobbies on other systems. In four years I never got that far with Haskell (their web frameworks are pretty young though). On the other hand, if you don't know HTML, CSS, Javascript, HTTP, etc., you have a much longer road ahead.
- Which version(s) of Smalltalk should I use? I know Squeak and have used Visualworks in the distant past.
Use Pharo.
- How screwed will my clients be if my ticker stops unexpectedly.
Can Seaside developers from outside Calgary pick up the slack for my hypothetical clients?
I think this is mostly a function of how you write your code. You're here, so it's probably not that bad. On the other hand, if your clients aren't going to be willing to hire outside city, state or country, they're going to have a rough time. But in general, the more obscure the platform is, the more zealous the developers are, the less they're going to demand to do the work and the more they're going to like it and be productive, impassioned and involved. I think it's almost always a net win, but I haven't managed to convince a business person of this fact yet.
- Is there any areas within the web development would that I should
concentrate on or avoid?
Absolutely concentrate the bulk of your effort into design and presentation. The prettier app wins, hands-down. Functionality is almost irrelevant to non-technical types, and on the bottom end maybe one out of fifty potential clients is going to look past the interface and ask questions about the backend. If I had to do it all over again I would concentrate more effort here.
- Is there any additional software/hardware that I would need other than my home computer (running Ubuntu) and Squeak/Seaside? My resources for investments is very limited.
Well, you're going to need a website. I recommend using a VPS; I spent $20/month on my business's. Avoid the cloud.
Are there other questions that I should have asked?
Starting a business is generally a tough deal so please don't butter me up with glowing reviews of Seaside.
Based on just the flavor of your email, I'm sensing that this is not a career direction you're particularly jazzed about. Are you sure this is what you want to do? I've heard there are people who make a lot of money in web development, but I haven't met those people in real life. I suspect they all live together in San Francisco in some sort of communal bubble. I'm not here for the money and I don't know anyone who is both here for the money and happy. Launching a business is a very tough deal; I don't think I have a second run in me. If you're seeing this primarily as a way out of unemployment, I'd consider some other options first.
— Daniel Lyons
Hi Daniel--
Wow, wonderfully frank comments. Thanks.
-C
-- Craig Latta www.netjam.org/resume +31 06 2757 7177 + 1 415 287 3547
Hello,
Interesting thread. I really wonder with this:
2011/4/9 Daniel Lyons fusion@storytotell.org
Seaside is slower than PHP.
Is this really thruth? How you compare?
If you're really focusing on abstract and undefined value of "performance", you're asking wrong kinds of questions. Seaside is _quick enough_ for most kinds of applications if/when used correctly, and some Smalltalk VMs like VisualWorks or Cog are pretty darn quick in and of themselves.
Hope this helps,
-Boris
From: seaside-bounces@lists.squeakfoundation.org [mailto:seaside-bounces@lists.squeakfoundation.org] On Behalf Of Denis Kudriashov Sent: 25 April 2011 15:16 To: Seaside - general discussion Subject: Re: [Seaside] Should I become a Seasider?
Hello,
Interesting thread. I really wonder with this:
2011/4/9 Daniel Lyons fusion@storytotell.org
Seaside is slower than PHP.
Is this really thruth? How you compare?
2011/4/9 Daniel Lyons fusion@storytotell.org:
- Which version(s) of Smalltalk should I use?
I know Squeak and have used Visualworks in the distant past.
Use Pharo.
This is not really the only option, Seaside 3 works perfectly on Squeak also and Pharo/Squeak, Squeak/Pharo is more a matter of personal preference that of technical questions, at this level of use.
Cheers.
On Apr 8, 2011, at 2:53 PM, Ralph Boland wrote:
This post is about making a living as a web developer using Seaside.
I am an unemployed software developer in Calgary (1,000,000 people), Alberta, Canada. I have used Squeak for years but I have found no Smalltalk work in Calgary and in fact know of only one small company in Calgary that uses Smalltalk.
I know very little about Seaside. My impression is that websites developed using Seaside are somewhat slower than with other web development tools and that Seaside uses more memory (I assume on the server side) than other web development tools. Nevertheless there are web developers using Seaside successfully. Are these impressions correct?
What I am wondering is should I learn Seaside and then attempt to sell my web development services in Calgary? My impression is that:
- No one in Calgary has ever heard of Seaside so selling my services
would be difficult. 2) Since I should be able to develop web sites faster using Seaside I should be able to offer my services at a discount and hopefully be able to find business that way. But since no one but myself (at least locally) would be able to maintain the web sites, potential customers are going to be very shy. Are these impressions correct?
Lets assume I decide to become a web developer (something I know almost nothing about) using Seaside as my competitive edge. To my knowledge I would be the only Seaside web developer in Calgary.
- How long (starting basically from scratch) is it going to take
before I am competent; or at least competent enough to seek clients? Assume I am a competent Squeak developer.
Which version(s) of Smalltalk should I use? I know Squeak and have used Visualworks in the distant past.
How screwed will my clients be if my ticker stops unexpectedly.
Can Seaside developers from outside Calgary pick up the slack for my hypothetical clients?
- Is there any areas within the web development would that I should
concentrate on or avoid?
- Is there any additional software/hardware that I would need other than my home computer (running Ubuntu) and Squeak/Seaside? My resources for investments is very limited.
Are there other questions that I should have asked?
Starting a business is generally a tough deal so please don't butter me up with glowing reviews of Seaside.
My suggestion is to learn Seaside and use it to build side projects of your own. You've probably got some ideas, and Seaside is the way to go there. The IDE (Pharo) + components + continuations combine to blow everything else out of the water. I say this as a pretty sharp Rails developer - nothing even comes close to development speed in Seaside. That's a big advantage. It gives you free license to experiment with ideas. Also, because everything is smalltalk code and everything is an object, you have a much more flexible, understandable system. Right now I've got some beta users who can benefit from features that probably wouldn't be useful to anyone else...normally I'd say, "Sorry, I'm not building that," but considering that I can build a little component in less than an hour, and plug it in only for their account, it's worth it to me to do it. I haven't been doing this for long, but I'm comfortable customizing a lot more of my app for certain customers, because it's just so easy to do.
I'm using Seaside to build my startup projects because it's a huge technical advantage. I earn money right now by doing contract work, and as much as I'd love to use Seaside in those gigs, I feel like that would be screwing over my clients. They're going to have a hell of a time finding someone to maintain it when I leave.
Building a business of any sort is challenging enough, as you may already know and are definitely about to find out. Don't compound the headaches by throwing a niche technology like Seaside into the mix.
Pat
http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html
In this article, Paul Graham explains why he developed his web app in *lisp*!
Here's one valuable snippet: "programming languages vary in power... if you have a choice of several languages, it is, all other things being equal, a mistake to program in anything but the most powerful one."
HTH, Sean
-- View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/Should-I-become-a-Seasider-tp3437513p3573970.html Sent from the Seaside General mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
yep, and he sold that to yahoo and he became the most influential and one of the most efficient a superangels out there
I'd say that you should choose what makes you more powerful (so you have better odds to disrupt and challenge the statu quo)
in fact we consider seaside + our stuff to be our superpower
sebastian
o/
On Jun 4, 2011, at 4:19 PM, Sean P. DeNigris wrote:
http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html
In this article, Paul Graham explains why he developed his web app in *lisp*!
Here's one valuable snippet: "programming languages vary in power... if you have a choice of several languages, it is, all other things being equal, a mistake to program in anything but the most powerful one."
HTH, Sean
-- View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/Should-I-become-a-Seasider-tp3437513p3573970.html Sent from the Seaside General mailing list archive at Nabble.com. _______________________________________________ seaside mailing list seaside@lists.squeakfoundation.org http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seaside
As a novice programmer I've found this thread to be especially interesting. I know a lot businesses go for the .net, c#, sql etc approach.. where does that rank on the scale and why? Hehe... just looking for opinions here.
RS
From: sebastian@flowingconcept.com Subject: Re: [Seaside] Re: Should I become a Seasider? Date: Sat, 4 Jun 2011 16:59:22 -0300 To: seaside@lists.squeakfoundation.org
yep, and he sold that to yahoo and he became the most influential and one of the most efficient a superangels out there I'd say that you should choose what makes you more powerful (so you have better odds to disrupt and challenge the statu quo) in fact we consider seaside + our stuff to be our superpower sebastian o/
On Jun 4, 2011, at 4:19 PM, Sean P. DeNigris wrote:http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html
In this article, Paul Graham explains why he developed his web app in *lisp*!
Here's one valuable snippet: "programming languages vary in power... if you have a choice of several languages, it is, all other things being equal, a mistake to program in anything but the most powerful one."
HTH, Sean
-- View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/Should-I-become-a-Seasider-tp3437513p3573970.html Sent from the Seaside General mailing list archive at Nabble.com. _______________________________________________ seaside mailing list seaside@lists.squeakfoundation.org http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seaside
_______________________________________________ seaside mailing list seaside@lists.squeakfoundation.org http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seaside
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